


Woman in Red

by clare_dragonfly



Category: King and Lionheart - Of Monsters and Men (Music Video)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:12:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare_dragonfly/pseuds/clare_dragonfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman has a child. She doesn't like her circumstances, so she changes them, but their new land isn't much better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woman in Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lferion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/gifts).



The woman holds the baby to her breast and watches the shore.

He’s so small and perfect and precious, her child. He needs her more than anything else in the world does. More than his father ever did or ever will. The bastard didn’t even stick around to see his son born, gave her money to get rid of it but took it back when she made it clear she wasn’t going to do that.

It doesn’t matter, she tells herself, shifting the babe so he’s more comfortable. She’ll be enough for him, and he’ll be enough for her. They’ll be happy together. It’s just that they’re going to have to leave. Erleynor holds nothing for them. There will be opportunities in Newick, though; she’ll find work, and she’ll care for her child.

She hugs him tight and bends to whisper in his ear. “Meren,” she calls him. The name means “king” in the Erleynor language, their language, though she’ll learn Newickian and let him learn it—she’ll teach him Erleynor, as well. He deserves to know it. He deserves to know what is good about his abandoned country and forget what is bad.

Then the great airship’s gates open, and the crowd presses closer. The woman straightens her spine and walks to the doors.

—

Newick is not like she expected. It’s not the empty, beautiful land of the stories. She almost turns back and gets right back on the airship when she sees the dirty, crowded city before her, no different from the cities of Erleynor, but what would be the point? At least Newick will be different from the way home was. At least Newick will be new, a fresh start for her and Meren.

She raises her head and holds her child close and strides into the crowd. Men and women call at her from every side, calling her “Erlen” and “pig” and “demon’s whore,” but she’s learned to ignore all that. Even at home in Erleynor she was called names like that. Here, at least they don’t know that the father of her child never married her. Here, she is a stranger, anonymous except for being Erleyn.

But as she goes further into the city, being a stranger no longer seems like such a good thing. The only things people say to her are rude things, “get out of my way” and “walk faster” and “Erlen” and “pig” and “demon’s whore.” She hurries, but she doesn’t know where she’s hurrying to. She needs work but she doesn’t know where to find it.

Then she sees a man in Erleyn face paint and black robes, and she surprises herself by breathing a sigh of relief. At least this man speaks her language—she only knows a smattering of Newickian. She will be able to make this man understand her. She will speak to this man.

“Excuse me,” she says, hurrying up to him. But he strides away, not even noticing her. “Excuse me,” she says, more loudly, and faces turn to stare at her—and at last the Erleyn man does too, his eyes widening in surprise.

“I’m sorry,” he says in her language, the melodious tones easily sliding under the raucous Newickian noise to reach her ears. “I’m so unused to anyone speaking Erleyn, I didn’t really believe I heard you. Are you new to Newick?”

His tone is so kind that she could collapse with relief. “Yes,” she says. “I’ve just arrived here and I’m looking for work but I have no idea how to start. I can hardly even speak Newickian. Can you help me?”

He smiles and reaches out to her and she thinks at last, here is a man she can trust.

—

It’s two days later and she and Meren are out in the cold. She’s paid for her bed but she has no more money, and no one has jobs. No one but the scarlet girls, and despite the misleading name (for “scarlet” means something different in Erleynor than it means in Newick), she understands what those are. And even if it didn’t mean parting from Meren she would never do it.

She sits in the gutter, her brilliant garments becoming more and more soiled by the filth of this city, and tries to hold back a sob. She clutches Meren to her chest and wonders if she’s made the right choice. She should go back to Erleynor where at least she would be able to find some paying work, something that she could feel good about accomplishing. But she knows that’s no longer an option. More even than the fear of humiliation should someone she knows discover her returning to her native land, she has no money to pay for her passage, and the first airship, where they knew her and Meren, is long gone. To get on a new one she would need a job, and if she had a job she would not have to leave.

Meren makes a soft cooing noise, and she swallows her tears and pushes herself clumsily to her feet. She can accomplish something—she must, and she will. For him. She doesn’t need to stay in this one dirty city; there’s a whole country spread out before her. She only has to find it.

She finds a comfortable position for Meren and sets off walking. She chooses a direction and sticks with it, knowing that if she walks long enough she will find something. Her sense of direction is entirely thrown off in this strange land and she has no idea which way the sea is anymore, but if she finds it she will turn left or right, and if she does not find that she will find the countryside.

—

She has been walking for so long that she has lost track of time, fed Meren twice, and eaten through her entire stack of provisions when she becomes aware of a girl walking beside her. Girl—but the woman cannot be less than her own age, and she dresses in flounces and long hair, the way the woman has seen Newickian children dress. She carries a wooden board across her shoulders from which two buckets dangle.

The girl smiles when she sees that the woman has noticed her, showing at least two rotten teeth. “Where are you going?” she asks, her voice holding a twang that makes it difficult to understand the words.

The woman tries to dredge up her knowledge of Newickian. “I don’t know,” she says, hoping the words are right.

Whether they are or not, the girl seems to understand. “Looking for—“ and she finishes with a word the woman does not know, and makes a suggestive gesture with her eyebrows that the woman cannot begin to fathom.

“I am looking for work,” says the woman, hoping that her verbs are spoken correctly.

The girl looks puzzled for a moment, then her expression clears and she grins again. “You’re in luck, then! My—“ another word the woman does not know—“is looking for a—“ and yet another.

The woman tries to make her puzzlement known, but if it is not scarlet district work, she does not much mind. And the girl certainly does not seem to understand, but gestures for the woman to follow her through a gate, which the woman does gladly. The girl opens and closes it with surprising dexterity considering the burdens on her shoulders. She carries her buckets to a small building that sits beside a much larger one, sets them down, then gestures for the woman to follow her up onto a wooden platform by the large building. She raps on the door, and it is opened quickly.

The heavy woman who opens the door has a quick conversation with the girl, the words moving too quickly for the woman to understand, but she does catch a few things: “Erlen girl” and “work.” The heavy woman looks her up and down appraisingly and beckons her in.

“You speak Newickian, girl?” she asks, her voice loud and not as accented as the girl’s, once they are inside the hot and sweet-smelling kitchen.

The woman nods. “A little. I’m afraid I don’t know completely what is being brought for here.”

The heavy woman mouths through the words, puzzled, then her expression clears and she points at Meren. The woman hastily steps backward, clutching the child to her chest, and the heavy woman laughs. The woman stops, confused, for the woman is clearly mocking her but is not angry in any way.

“We don’t want to take him, girl,” she explains. “But you feed him, you know, same way you could feed any child?” She points at her own wide breast and the woman nods. “Well, we have a babe here needs fed the same as him.”

The woman’s eyes widen and she nods. That is something she can do. “I can feed more child.”

“I think you can, girl. They always say p—Erlen make the best wet nurses. I’ll introduce you to the,” and there is another word the woman does not understand, though she has puzzled her way through “wet nurse.”

“Come along,” she adds, walking to the door, and the woman has no choice but to follow her.

The rest of the house is much grander and more beautiful—perhaps not to the woman’s taste, but obviously expensive and made all in pale colors, which must be difficult to clean. She looks around as she walks, trying not to stare, and hoping that her shoes are not making the carpet too dirty. They go up a set of stairs, where the woman keeps close to the wall; there are not many stairs in Erleynor, and she is not used to being so far from the ground. She feels better when they reach a place where the floor is flat again, even though she knows the ground is very far away.

The cook knocks on a door, then waits until there is a faint reply from inside. Then she opens the door and bobs a curtsy. “Good evening, ma’am. We’ve just had an Erlen girl come looking for work. She’s got a babe of her own, so I thought she might be a good wet nurse.”

A woman dressed all in clouds of pink and white stands, her clothes billowing about her. “Erlen girl?” She looks the woman up and down and raises her hand. “Come closer, girl.”

The woman does, nervously, holding Meren close. He shifts, but does not cry—but an infant in the room does start to cry at that moment, a thin, hiccupy wail. The woman instantly looks around for the babe and finally decides the sound must be coming from what appears to be a white box in the corner of the room.

“Well, your child looks healthy enough,” says the billowy woman. “What brings you to Newick without a husband to take care of your child, girl?”

The woman swallows and forces herself to look at the billowy woman. “My husband died, ma’am, and left us with nothing.”

The billowy woman’s eyes narrow. “I’m sure he did.” But then she glances at the wailing box and sighs. “I need a wet nurse right enough. Well, you’ll sleep in here, stay in this room at all times unless you’re in the kitchen for a meal—and you’re to only leave the child alone if she’s sleeping, you understand me?”

“I’m to sleep here, ma’am?” the woman squeaks, looking around at the room. It’s all beautiful expensive white fabrics, and with such a bed… Did she think the woman’s clothing was a cloud? No, surely that bed is the cloud.

“Never more than a step from tending to my daughter’s needs,” says the billowy woman severely. “But we’ll have to get you cleaned up first, of course,” she adds, her voice softening. “Emya, get her some clothes. I’m sure we’ve something suitable in the laundry.”

“As you say, ma’am,” says the cook, bobbing another curtsy and scurrying out of the room.

The child’s wailing intensifies, and Meren begins to mutter, hearing it too. The woman looks at the box. “She needs to be fed, ma’am.”

The billowy woman heaves a sigh. “And that’ll be your job now. Thank heavens you came when you did. Well, I’ll just be in the next room. Emya and the maids will tend to what you need.” She sweeps out of the room, leaving nothing but a faint smell of flowers. The woman quickly crosses to the box to pick up the crying child.

—

But of course this job does not last; when the infant is weaned, the woman finds herself out of the house and in search of another job. Meren is big, now, too young to walk any distance and too heavy to carry far. The woman asks Emya and the mistress (a word she has learned after much time in the big house) if they know any other jobs of the same kind, for her milk still flows, but they turn her away.

The woman walks, and her breasts ache, and her arms ache from carrying Meren, and her ears ache from hearing his inconstant whimpers. “Mama,” he cries at last, “tell me a story.” And she does.

She weaves him a story of her life in Erleynor, the life she once dreamed of having (but all her dreams are gone away now). She tells him a story that his father is a king in exile, and that they had to leave for fear of being executed by their own people. She tells him a story that he will be a king someday himself. “My little king,” she calls him.

In that way she makes everything ache less, and she walks and walks, sometimes carrying Meren, sometimes with him walking beside her, further into the country of Newick.

—

She finds work in the inn of a generous man, where as long as she works hard at all hours and does not complain and endures the attentions of its patrons, Meren is allowed to run wild and indulge every bit of his childish wish for play and chaos. And if the innkeeper’s wife sometimes acts as though Meren is her own child and cossets and spoils him with sweets and toys, well, Meren knows who his real mother is, and all she’s ever wanted is a good life for him. This is a good life.

One day she comes downstairs for fresh water, in the midst of scrubbing the floor of a guest room, in time to hear a pair of rough-looking men bartering with the innkeeper. “We’ll give you two thousand for her,” one of them says, and the woman freezes, heart like to beat out of her chest.

The innkeeper shakes his head. “She’s a free woman. She and the boy both.” But he doesn’t sound certain.

The other rough man barks with laughter. “A free pig this far into Newick? No, mark me, she’s escaped from somewhere, and we’ll return her. She’ll fetch a pretty price.”

The innkeeper slams his hands onto the counter, strong hands from work all day. “She’s a good worker and I won’t have a word said against her. So what if she did escape? She deserves her freedom.”

The men leave, and the woman scurries into the kitchen for her water, shaking and wishing she’d never learned enough Newickian to understand that some people in this country see her and her son as slaves.

—

It’s less than two more years before the inn burns down and she and Meren escape with nothing. It’s just luck; she was outside getting more water and he was outside playing and watching her. The fire started in the kitchen and she doused him with the water in her bucket to protect him before pulling him away.

They’re the only survivors, and they have their lives and each other, but they have nothing to move on with.

Mindful of the words of those rough men—for those are words she has never been able to get out of her head—she seeks out the rising sun and walks east, farther from the deepest parts of Newick. Back to places where people can see an Erleyn and expect her to be free, not a slave.

The woman and her child find a set of train tracks. They follow them southeast. None of the trains will stop for them.

—

They find another job at another inn, a busy one near a train station, but the owners are less kind here. They make Meren work, too, even though he is hardly big enough to do anything. But he washes dishes and turns spits and sometimes runs about appealing to the customers with his little round face, and if some of them cluck and express sadness that he was born Erleyn and not Newickian, well, at least he has enough food in his belly.

The woman looks for more work. But there’s no more work to be found. Until after three years of work the innkeeper’s son gropes her behind and calls her demon’s whore, and she pushes him away and he strikes his head on a door and falls bleeding. The blood makes her dizzy and she runs, she takes Meren with her, and again they have nothing but at least they have another.

When they reach the train tracks there’s one of the great iron beasts just pulling out of the station, and an arm reaches out to help them, and they jump on the train and escape to freedom with their new friends, who don’t distinguish between Newickian and Erlen and who share their food with a hungry child and who have nothing, either, nothing but the train and each other.

At least it’s something. She holds her child close and tells him all the made-up stories about the exiled king one more time.

—

But the train is going the wrong way, deep into the lawless heart of Newick, and the woman doesn’t find that out until it’s too late.

She and her little king have been parted. But they’ll find each other again.

She’ll find him or she’ll die trying.


End file.
